Free as a Bird
by toofreakingmainstream
Summary: 15 year old Amelia moves to La Push, Washington hoping for a change from her usual life in New York. While at first she comes across not much adventure, she quickly learns that La Push isn't just an ordinary small town. Seth imprint story.
1. Prologue

Prologue

I wasn't as upset as my parents expected me to be, and probably less than I should be. I mean, I was moving away from freaking New York City. _New York City. _Most people would be mad, right? New York, the city that never sleeps, shining lights, Times Square—people came from all around the world to tour New freaking York. So why wasn't I mad? I had it all in New York. Friends, family, I went to a good school, I was _happy_.

So when my mom told me that we were moving to La Push, Washington, the most random state imaginable, I don't know why the idea appealed to me so much. Maybe it was the fact that I had spent the last 15 years (has it really been 15 years?) in the small townhouse on the outskirts of Manhattan, and that moving to a not so crazy, beautiful, and unpolluted town in Washington was, however stupid it might sound, an adventure? Maybe it wouldn't exactly be an adventure—but it was a _change. _And I wasn't opposed to change, I welcomed it—I had wanted one for such a long time, and moving was so _perfect. _

I liked New York. A lot. I liked that waiting more than 5 minutes for the train or bus was waiting too long. I liked how everyone seemed to walk with purpose, how they always had a destination. And I liked how whenever there was an accident people seemed to be more concerned with how they might not get to work on time, despite the fact that someone just died—it sounded morbid, but New York was just so… exciting.

But La Push. Sunsets. Cliffs. Trees. Beaches. More sunsets. It sounded so… different.

And that was what I longed for.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

It was night when we finally reached our new home in La Push. The car ride from New York to Washington was long and boring, as was expected, and for who knows how long I sat there listening to Katy Perry's One That Got Away on repeat blasting from my sister's headphones while the lower part of my body fell completely asleep. So, when I finally dragged my still asleep butt out of the car and met my parents who had arrived a week ago and had unloaded and opened most of the things, and then said bye to my aunt who oh so graciously offered to drive me and my whiny-ass sister—no easy feat—all the way to freaking Washington, well, I was exhausted to say the least. I didn't have any trouble falling asleep on the couch in the midst of countless other items that probably did not belong in the living room.

And so the next morning when I woke up me and my clumsy self of course tripped over some objects that probably belonged in the kitchen or dining room or something and I ended up with my nose inches away from the dusty wood floor. It was 8 am, too early for anyone else in the house to be awake so I picked myself up as quietly as I got my first real look at my new house. It was a very cozy, small house with windows large enough to let plenty of sunlight in. It fit in perfectly, from what I observed, with the other houses down the street. Looking out the window I saw that it was definitely all that I had been hoping for when I wanted a change—but I wasn't ready to go outside and explore my new neighborhood.

Instead I settled on checking out my new room—the smaller bedroom despite me being the older sister—and saw that the walls were already painted the shade of cream that I chose and the floor was carpeted. My bed frame was situated in the middle of the frame and the mattress was right next to it, along with boxes of what I assumed were all my stuff, which left me the honor of actually decorating my room.

With some difficulty I managed to situate the mattress on top of the frame and looked through numerous numbers of boxes until I found the one where I packed my sheets and blankets in. After making my bed I got to work on putting up my posters and setting up my bookshelf, so by the time it was 1 o' clock and my parents and sister were finally up, my room looked… well, like every other teenager's. Tons of colorful posters and random crap were up on the wall and it looked a bit cluttered, but I liked it. It was, now, officially _my _room.

And well, I had better get used to it.

My sister had much more trouble adapting to her new house than I did. I had to listen to her whine about how unfair life was on the ride to school, and frankly, my first day at school was not turning out how I wanted it to be.

"Mom, how do you expect me to look nice and make friends if you don't take me shopping anytime soon?" I heard my sister say. Frankly, my sister, Ariel, could be extremely bratty and the typical 14 year old teen. As the youngest sibling it was inevitable that she was spoiled. But she was a lot smarter than she looked, and could get my parents—and even me at times—to do just about anything.

"Amanda," _Amanda. _My sister hated that name. I knew the first thing she would tell people at her new school was that she liked to be called Mandy. She wasn't unlike me in that way—the only people who called me Amelia was my parents, the rest of the world simply called me Mia. "Amelia," my mom continued, "don't you want your friends to like you because of your personality and not your clothes? School isn't all about popularity you know, focus on your grades, keep your true friends close by, and tell me if anybody bullies you okay? Trust me, I was once your age, and high school was…" _Oh god. _I rolled my eyes. Another rant. _Please, no, not again. _The last thing I needed my mom was to lecture me about what a bunch of phonies the kids at school were. The thing was, _I already knew. _

I knew kids were cruel, and that going to a small school in a small town probably meant everyone was more clique-y. I knew that being that new girl in a school that probably never gets new students meant that for the first few weeks, I'll be surrounded by kids whispering and talking when they thought I wasn't looking.

"Mom, please, spare me the lecture." My sister said in her high pitched voice. We had arrived at my new high school.

Up until now I had maintained a cool, I-don't-really-give-a-shit sort of attitude about this whole thing. Now my stomach felt empty with dread and my legs were shaking—I wasn't really sure if I had enough will power to carry them to school.

Kill me now.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Few weeks before I was born, my mom decided that she wanted to name me Stacy. My mom's hormones probably convinced her last minute that Amelia was a prettier name, and thus I was dubbed Amelia. Thankfully. If I had been named Stacy, I wouldn't be able to stand listening to countless numbers of people come up to me and ask me if my mom has got it going on.

I don't know why this thought occurred to me precisely at that moment, standing outside my new high school.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at just how… small the school was. I was a little grateful too, because it wouldn't take long for me to find my classes.

Despite the shaking in my legs and the butterflies—huge, squirming butterflies—I managed to somehow get to the front of my school. I knew without looking back that my mom hadn't driven away. It was just like my mom, and I reckoned that any good mom would do the same. That's the thing about moms—no matter how old they are or how old you are, in their minds you were still that grinning toddler that they had naked pictures of. Oddly, I started to get weirdly sentimental and I swear I could hear corny music playing in the background.

I walked up the steps and pulled open the door. Inside was the lobby of the building and because I was fairly early, thankfully nobody was in the building besides the receptionist still hadn't looked up from whatever the hell she was doing.

"Excuse me." I said in a quiet voice. She frowned like she had heard, but didn't look up from her laptop. I stood their awkwardly—my life in a nutshell—until she looked up and raised her eyebrows at me. Real conversationist, that one.

"Erm… I'm a new student." As soon as I said that she kind of got that "ohhhh" look on her face.

"You're Amelia?" I guess they didn't get more than one new student enrolling during the second week of school. She wrote something down on a piece of paper and took out something I presumed to be my schedule and handed it to me.

I walked away before things got any more awkward.

The whole day I was surrounded by whispering and staring, like if I was some endangered species and I suppose I was, in this godforsaken town, at least. I was dreading lunch because I would probably end up like Cady from Mean Girls and eat in one of the bathroom stalls. I kept my head bent low to avoid all the eyes and had managed to go through the first two periods without talking to anybody.

"You're the new girl, right?" I turned around to get a good look at the first person, who wasn't a teacher, to say something to me all day that wasn't "excuse me".

I smiled. A short girl who looked Native American like everyone else looked at me with dark brown eyes framed with thick lashes. She looked like a nice person, I guess. "Hi." I smiled again.

"Umm… you're sort of blocking my locker."

Oh.

I blushed, embarrassed that I thought she actually wanted to talk to me. Rather than dwell over it for too long, I mumbled something that sounded like a sorry and walked away.

"Hey new girl, wait!" I turned around, expecting the worst. Instead it was the short girl from earlier stumbling towards me.

"You dropped this" she said, handing me my math textbook and smiling at me. "Shouldn't you put that in your locker?"

I knew I should, but the problem was I was having trouble finding my locker. There were rows lined up against the wall, and I didn't have enough time in between classes to go searching for it. So I just ended up carrying my books. I think I she sensed this, because the next thing I knew she was had already grabbed my schedule where my locker number was printed on, and was dragging me towards the end of the hall.

I was grateful, really.

Her name, which I found out later, was Sarah, and we were fast friends, I guess you could say.

I went home in disbelief that Sarah and I were friends. She was confident, pretty, and seemed like a kick-ass kind of person, whereas I was average, boring, and had barely managed to tame the frizzy mane that I called my hair. We had close to nothing in common yet we had this unspoken agreement.

She became the closest thing I had to a best friend.

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><p>To be honest, I don't know how I feel about this story so far, so I would really really appreciate it if you guys could tell me how you feel about it.<p> 


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